In 1992, the Institute for Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) established a standard for a scalable coherent interface (SCI). SCI supports distributed multiprocessing at high bandwidth, with low latency, and providing scalable architecture. Since the 1980""s, there has been continuous development of redundant arrays of inexpensive or independent drives (RAID) which provide fault-tolerant data storage and access capabilities. It is against the general background of RAID and SCI that the invention is made.
The invention relates generally to high-speed fault tolerant storage systems. More particularly, the invention relates to fault tolerant storage systems utilizing RAID and/or SCI, combinations thereof, and features usable with one of both of them, or otherwise usable in a data storage or data access environment. Detailed information on various example embodiments of the invention is provided in the Detailed Description below, and the invention is defined by the appended claims.